by Mark Wandrey
Rick used his radar to examine everything he could. After a second, he spun and fired his cold gas thrusters as hard as he could, slowly reversing his momentum and moving him in pursuit of the falling section.
Rick cursed and monitored his reserves of propellant and oxygen. This was getting to be a habit.
* * *
Rick was immediately grateful he’d taken the opportunity to recharge the cold gas thruster tanks. He’d burned a lot of pressure to catch up, and more to attempt to match speed. He’d crashed into one ship at high speed; he didn’t want to go it again.
When he was within a kilometer, he realized he could control his fall with arms and legs! There was enough of the gas giant’s atmosphere to provide minimal aerodynamic control. He’d been skydiving several times while with Mickey Finn, though never into a gas giant. He wasn’t sure if anyone had skydived into a gas giant. Yay me, history!
He could feel his temperature beginning to fall. Even though this gas giant was ‘hot’ on the surface of its atmosphere, hot was a relative term. It was 173 Kelvin at the surface, which was 100 below Celsius. Now as he plummeted into the ever-thickening clouds, it was 162 and falling.
“If it ain’t one thing, it’s the other,” he said.
A second later, his radar pinged a nearby target. His target, the base fragment, had been shedding house-sized pieces ever since he’d closed with it. Luckily for him, those pieces were from the sides, and he’d been coming in down the middle. He looked at the radar signal. It was Vestoon. Rick heaved a sigh. He’d been afraid the Wrogul would choose self-preservation over helping.
He noticed as he approached that the fragment was falling toward the strange black storm. He hoped he wouldn’t get to see what it was made of up close. The starship was just behind Rick as he fell onto the battleship hull, using his jets at the last to come in for a landing. There was some gravity now, which was alarming. Gas giants had ferocious gravity wells. If they fell too far, not even a fusion torch could get them out.
Despite some gravity to hold him, he still used magnetic grapples to help him walk. He’d scanned the hull in detail as he approached and had already found a spot. It wasn’t an airlock, but he didn’t have time to look for one. Using his arm lasers, he cut through the exposed hull section. No explosion of atmosphere came out as he cut through, so the interior was in vacuum.
Rick looked around and saw a laser flash.
“Bingo.” It took him a moment of examining all the dead opSha before he found Sato, next to another door. Rick moved quickly but carefully. In the growing atmosphere, the floor was treacherous with buckets of blood and guts. Sato had done a real number on them. But as he got closer, Rick could see they’d done a number on him, too. The man was torn up, lying next to a dead Flatar.
He scanned around to be sure a fucking Tortantula wasn’t lurking. When he didn’t find one, he knelt next to the still form. He concentrated and cycled through all his vision types. There was a dim EM field, and his skin temp was down to 35 Celsius. If he was dead, he wasn’t very dead.
“God, he looks like he went through a meat grinder.” Rick felt the man’s neck, which had another gash in it. He was wasting his time, but after a second, he found a faint pulse! “One tough mother,” Rick said, and popped his thigh access hatch. Along with some basic survival items was a nanite dispenser.
“You should be glad you’re unconscious,” he said as he spun the dial to ‘Major Trauma,’ put it against Sato’s chest, and hit the button. A tiny needle punched through the skin and into the chest cavity, releasing a storm of nanites. A moment later, Sato’s back arched, and his mouth fell open in a silent scream. A full second later, he fell limp back to the floor.
“Hopefully that stabilized you,” he said, and scooped him into his arms. Turning, he headed back the way he’d come. The internal navigation system in his pinplants was working fine. He headed in that direction. He’d only taken a few steps when the decks shuddered crazily. “Oh, shit.” He tried to run, without much success. Another jolt sent him sprawling on the bloody floor.
Rick got Sato back up and resumed his course. He couldn’t do anything else. It was either try, or die, and he wasn’t the kind to give up. After all, how many marines had come back from the dead?
Another shudder, but this one was strange. It felt like the falling ship fragment had suddenly stabilized its fall. Then the gravity slowly increased. Not in a frightening way, but in a steady pace you’d only associate with intentional action. Could the fragment have a drive? He couldn’t think of any way Dakkar could do much of anything to affect the fragment. Vestoon was simply far too small to pull it off.
Whatever was happening, he still needed to get off the thing. He pushed on in the direction Dakkar had signaled from. After another minute, he came to a lock. The mechanism wouldn’t work on automatic, so he cycled the lock by hand, and stepped inside. When he reached for the control to vent the atmosphere, he suddenly heard a voice reverberating through the hull.
“DO NOT VENT ATMOSPHERE!”
It was so loud he staggered. He’d heard it through the metal in his armor! “Why not?”
“BECAUSE THE ATMOSPHERE ON THE OTHER SIDE WILL KILL YOU!”
He carefully set the unconscious scientist on the deck and walked to the outer door. It had a small viewport, no more than 20 centimeters across. It was covered in frost. Rick scraped away the ice and looked through. A floating Portuguese Man-o-War was on the other side. He stared at it, and a tentacle waved. “Oh.”
* * * * *
Epilogue
Sato opened his eyes and looked around. He was in zero gravity, strapped to the removable medical bed in Vestoon’s multipurpose central cabin. In this case, it had been configured as a medbay for him.
“Hello?” he called. It hurt to talk. He tried to put a hand to his throat, but his arms were strap
ped down, too. “Hey, I’m awake! Ouch.”
Rick floated in. “Good afternoon!” the armored man said. “Welcome back.”
“Thanks, but I don’t understand how I’m even here.”
“It was a bit of a miracle. After you decided to wreck the Science Guild base, the chunks were falling into the atmosphere. I went in after you.”
“With this little ship?”
“No, he free dived,” Dakkar said as he drifted in.
“You crazy idiot,” Sato said.
“I didn’t try to take on the whole guild by myself,” Rick said.
“He has a point,” Dakkar agreed.
“I didn’t ask you. At least you had the sense to not take the ship down after me.” Rick glanced at Dakkar, who pulsed random colors. “You didn’t?”
“Rick convinced me to.”
“How exactly did he do that?”
“He reminded me you are my friend.”
Sato looked from Rick to the Wrogul and sighed. “It’s still a miracle you got out of the atmosphere.”
“We didn’t,” Dakkar said.
“Now you’re just fucking with me,” Sato complained. “How did you?”
“The Izlians used a pair of tugs to boost the fragment back into orbit,” Dakkar explained.
Sato’s eyes bulged and he looked at Rick, who nodded and explained.
“The black circle down in the atmosphere? It’s not a storm, it’s an Izlian city. This gas giant has some rare elements. They apparently were ‘tolerating’ the Science Guild presence in exchange for credits.”
“Explains why there’s a big gate here still, too,” Sato said.
“Exactly,” Dakkar said. “After they put us back in orbit, they asked us to leave as soon as possible. They were going to destroy the fragment and pretend nothing happened.”
“Why did they bother saving us?” Sato asked.
“They didn’t, actually,” Rick said. “The fragment was going to come too close to their city. When they intercepted to divert it, they realized there were still people on board, and boosted it into orbit. We were just very lucky.”
Sato nodded. “Can someone unstrap me?”
“You aren’t going to go all kill-ninja on me?” Rick asked.
“No,” Sato assured him.
Rick moved over and unstrapped him. “Dakkar told me the story about you. I’m sorry about your wife.”
“Doesn’t excuse what I became,” Sato said as he used his hands to examine his wounds. “You must have used nanites?”
“I did,” Rick said, then gestured at Dakkar. “He did the rest.”
“Least I could do,” Dakkar said, waving his two specialized tentacles.
“What you became doesn’t matter,” Rick said. “You have some powerful information that can take the guild leadership down.”
“It’s more complicated than that.” Sato sighed. “The Science Guild is run by AIs.”
“Fascinating,” Dakkar said.
“I thought AIs were illegal and stuff,” Rick said.
“I suspect this is why,” Sato said. “I don’t have all the pieces, but I think these AIs go back to the First Republic. They were all destroyed in the Great Galactic War, or something like that.” He narrowed his eyes. Some of the things Minerva said… “They turned me into a sword to enforce their will on the people of the galaxy. Their motivations are…uncertain. To protect us from ourselves, or something? I just know they’re scared of Humans. Really scared.”
“Of us?” Rick laughed. “Why?”
“I wish I knew.”
“What now?” Rick asked.
“No clue,” Sato admitted. “I guess I’ll try to understand all of this, then share it with the Four Horsemen. If anyone would know what to do with the knowledge, it would be them.”
“The Izlians said all the technology and computers in the base were destroyed,” Rick said. “Doesn’t that mean you already won?”
“No,” Sato said. “I thought this was the home of the Science Guild, even thought that way when I worked for them. Now I know better. This was nothing more than a listening post, or a field office. No, the real home is out there somewhere. Maybe I can find it.”
“Sounds dangerous,” Rick said. “I’m in.” Sato gave him a curious look. “Don’t have anything else to do.”
“I want to monitor your recovery,” Dakkar said. “If you can give me a ride to Azure?”
“Definitely,” Sato agreed, and floated free from the bed. Overall, he felt pretty good. “Where are we?”
“Hyperspace,” Rick said. “The whole fight happened three days ago.”
Sato nodded. Okay, one step at a time. If they wanted me to be a sword, I’ll be a sword. A double-edged sword. He smiled at Dakkar. “Let’s get you home, my friend.” Dakkar flashed pleasing colors.
* * *
“This is not necessary,” Dakkar said as they moved down the starport alleyway.
“Nonsense,” Sato said and patted the tracked support tank he’d built for his Wrogul friend while en route. “You might as well return home with pinplants. It’s the least I can do.”
“It is surprising to find a facility with a Wrogul surgeon,” Dakkar said. “There must have been a lot of budding going on back at Azure.”
“It’s a nice place; what else is there to do except swim and screw?”
“We do not screw.”
“I am aware.”
“I know. It was humor. Ha. Ha.”
“You’re quite a bit different from Nemo,” Sato pointed out.
“Better or worse?”
“Better, I think. The adventure has been good for you.”
“I believe the experiences gave me a lot to think about. Nemo has limited exposure to the outside world. I will have to ponder this as well.”
Rick followed them a respectful distance behind. He’d acquired a new black hooded cloak, the previous one long gone in combat. He was there mainly for overwatch. Sato now carried multiple weapons, and with his training restored, along with his memories, there weren’t many situations he couldn’t get himself out of.
“Here it is,” Sato said, indicating a sign with the Galactic Union symbol for medicine.
“Very out of the way,” Dakkar noted.
“There are still a lot of beings in the galaxy who are suspicious of pinplant technology,” Sato said as he opened the door. Their last stop before Azure, the planet Fesk’l—or as the Humans called it, Emerald Sea—was a consortium-owned world with beautiful oceans. The problem was, the name came from the deep green waters, which contained levels of copper that would be toxic to Humans. Sato hadn’t visited the planet surface, only passed through long ago. He’d found out about the Wrogul physician from a trader on the orbiting space station.
Dakkar was excited, despite his saying it could wait. He’d passed the necessary age to have the implants done shortly after the battle with the Science Guild. Sato had surprised him with his plan when he’d heard about the availability here.
Inside were a robotic attendant and three aliens waiting for care. An elSha with burns on one hand, a Sidar with a bloodily bandaged wing membrane, and a rather small, despondent-looking Oogar holding its jaw. Sato walked up to the robotic attendant.
“You require medical assistance?” the machine asked.
“I have an appointment,” Sato said and gave the confirmation code.
“Accepted. Down the hall, operation room #12. The procedure will cost 11,000 credits.”
Sato paid the robot, who beeped cheerfully and opened the door. Dakkar rolled along behind him, the alien’s deep blue bar-shaped pupils looking at the waiting patients. “Maybe I could help?”
“There are other doctors,” Sato said. Dakkar followed without comment. He smiled a little. Not like Nemo at all.
At room #12, the door popped open to admit them. It was a sim
ple room with a configurable examination table, many locked cabinets full of instruments and medicines, and three waiting chairs designed to accommodate most humanoid physiologies. He wondered if there were Oogar-sized rooms and tried to imagine a Tortantula coming for a sore foot.
He took one of the chairs and waited. Dakkar’s support tank churned nervously around the room as he examined the different shelves and storage bins. Sato wondered if Dakkar would take up medicine someday, following in Nemo’s tentacle marks.
The rear door opened, and an alien of a race Sato had never seen before came in. It looked a little like a Chinese dragon, except it had six limbs, its body was less snake-like, and its mouth was more like a Nile crocodile, long and full of pointy teeth.
“Hello,” the alien said. Its translator was speaking in one of the universal Union languages, and it used pinplants directly, so Sato couldn’t trace the language. He’d already run the appearance through his pinplants and couldn’t find it. “Who is the patient?”
“Me,” Dakkar said, and waved a tentacle out of the water.
The alien gave Dakkar a queer little bow. “The doctor will be in shortly. Has the questionnaire been completed?”
“Yes,” Sato said, and handed the dragon-like being a datachip. It accepted it and slid the chip into a slate design Sato had never seen before.
“I’ll give this to the doctor. He’ll be in here momentarily.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, what race are you?” The door closed without a response. “Well that was rude.”
“How long will this take?” Dakkar asked.
“Not too long,” Sato said. At that moment, the door opened again, and the surgeon flew in. His support unit was, well, fascinating. It didn’t use treads like other Wrogul; it was a miniature flyer, held up by a dozen tiny and highly efficient electric turbines. The water compartment was small, no bigger than an extra-large coffee urn, and it had six little membrane gates the Wrogul could slide tentacles through. “That’s amazing,” Sato said, carefully studying the design. I can copy that, he thought with a grin.
